Viswanathan Anand made India proud by winning his fifth World Chess Championship title a few days ago, but what went into the making of a champion is not that everybody knows. The Mastermind says that of all the five world titles he has won so far, the last one was the toughest in terms of intensity, says the newspaper reports.
Anand has been the undisputed world champion since 2007 and he is back in the country after defending his fifth world title, against challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel. “When you finish an event progressive, it is the toughest ever. It was certainly the longest world championship as such.
“If you see earlier matches, I finished in game 11 and game 12 but this one went to the tie-breaker. I think in terms of intensity this was the toughest,” Anand said on Monday.
According to a report in The Tribune, talking about Gelfand, Anand said the Israeli was a tough nut to crack and had loads of experience to counter whatever he threw at him. "Boris (Gelfand) is very experienced. He has played in many top events and against top players. He has very close and deep relationships with top players. I did not expect him to lack experience but he might have lacked the actual experience of playing in a World Championship," he said.
His game was criticised by Russian legend Garry Kasparov while the Championship was on but Anand brushed it aside as nothing more than comments from someone who regrets leaving chess for politics. "I think he has some regret that he retired. This is about being at the center of attraction of chess tournaments again. I think he is someone who gives an impression that he wants to play chess again. That is my take on it," he said.
Recalling his preparations for the big event, Anand said it was an exhausting build-up. "My training camp was more than three months. For actual event, I was in Moscow for just under a month. I think while the event was happening it was funny. I was feeling that I was in Moscow for two months because the intensity was too high. Though the event finished on Wednesday, it feels weeks back," Anand said.
Meanwhile The Hindu writes that in a country where the vast majority of sports lovers are glued to television screens watching and cheering men despatch a white leather sphere over the boundary ropes time after time after time, why does Viswanathan Anand matter?
“After all, the slightly portly old Vishy moves tiny wooden pieces on a 64-square board in a silent hall with his often stubbly chin cupped in the palm of his hand. No skimpily clad cheerleaders to greet that move, no roars from the stands, no hysterical cries in the television commentary box. Just a few billion hyperactive neurons doing their job to perfection — so who cares?” adds Hindu.
“I, for one, do. We often refer to rocket science when something seems truly mysterious and impenetrable. But, believe me, rocket science is nursery rhymes compared to neuroscience. For, the 3 lbs of grey matter that each of us carry makes up the most complex organ in the known universe.
And that's a no-brainer, for the brain is far and away the most mysterious part of each of our bodies. It is for this reason that a sport that relies almost entirely on the fitness (in a truly Darwinian sense) of this remarkable organ bears little comparison to anything else in the athletic world,” writes the writer in The Hindu.
